— Most-read edition · Issue #14
The 5-minute research brief that actually gets stakeholder buy-in
Here's a situation almost every researcher I know has been in:
“I sent the research brief to my stakeholders two weeks ago. The meeting was yesterday. Nobody had read it. We spent the first 20 minutes just getting everyone aligned on what we were even studying.”
Sound familiar? The problem isn't that stakeholders don't care. It's that most research briefs are written for researchers — not for the people who actually need to act on them.
This issue is about fixing that in under 5 minutes.
The Tactical Idea
The “So What” Brief — write for the decision, not the study
Most briefs open with the methodology. Nobody outside research cares about that first. Instead, restructure your brief around three questions:
1. What decision does this research unlock?
Put this in the first line. “This research will tell us whether to invest in a mobile-first checkout redesign.”
2. What do we already know / not know?
Two bullets max. This shows you're filling a specific knowledge gap, not doing research in a vacuum.
3. What will we do with the answer?
Map each outcome to a team action. “If users can't complete the flow, we pause the launch.”
After that: method, timeline, what you need from the team. Keep it to one page.
Real-Life Example
How a researcher at a fintech cut meeting prep time by half
Priya, a senior UX researcher at a payments startup, spent 3 hours preparing briefs that her stakeholders would skim — or skip entirely.
She switched to the “So What” format for one sprint. The difference was immediate.
The format also worked at Barclays and a mid-sized healthcare consultancy.
The Honest Take
Most researchers write briefs to protect themselves, not to inform
There. I said it.
A 10-page brief with a 3-page methodology section is a comfort blanket. Nobody reads it, and the research still gets ignored.
The best researchers write briefs their most time-pressed stakeholder could read in a lift. That's the bar.
That's it for this week. If you try the “So What” Brief, hit reply and let me know how it lands.
— The ResearchGeek team
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